All 21st century literature as computational. (43) [Born] digital literature (or electronic literature) is the place where computation is "most evident" but Hayles posits a continuity between print and digital/electronic literature.
Think, for instance, of a fetus growing inside a mother's body. The mother's body is forming the fetus, but the fetus is also re-forming the motehr's body; both are bound together in a dynamic heterarchy, the culmination of which is the emergent complexity of the infant. (45)
It is not necessary to hold that computers are capable of thinking in order to appreciate digital literature. But in framing the discussion in terms of COMPUTATION, Hayles is effectively raising the ante. We are not just interested in the potential of digital litearture because multi-modality gives artists new means of expression, or it's the "latest thing." Rather, she makes a larger claim that the experience of contemporary life in industrial society is being transformed (for better or worse) by computation. We could call this ethos "post-human". To the extent we credit this, then digital literature becomes a site where we might expect important thinking, courting, resisting of these changes in the human to be taking place!
See p. 56 ..."Mediation in this sense ..."
See also, p. 58 "...the computer's real agency" AND "When literature leaps from one medium to another ... it does not leave behind ..."
p. 63, Michael Joyce's "Twelve Blue" is seen as literature leaping into the ethos of the web, repositioning the reader as "player" and moving away from the metaphor of the page. http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/joyce__twelve_blue.html
p. 64, Hayles claims that Joyce's "Twelve Blue" requires a different kind of reading to be appreciated.
p. 83 - Conclusion with regard to "intermediation" as a way of thinking about the different reading called for by computational litearture.
All 21st century literature as computational. (43) [Born] digital literature (or electronic literature) is the place where computation is "most evident" but Hayles posits a continuity between print and digital/electronic literature.
Think, for instance, of a fetus growing inside a mother's body. The mother's body is forming the fetus, but the fetus is also re-forming the motehr's body; both are bound together in a dynamic heterarchy, the culmination of which is the emergent complexity of the infant. (45)
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Editorialization - why emphasize computation, intelligent machines, etc.?
It is not necessary to hold that computers are capable of thinking in order to appreciate digital literature. But in framing the discussion in terms of COMPUTATION, Hayles is effectively raising the ante. We are not just interested in the potential of digital litearture because multi-modality gives artists new means of expression, or it's the "latest thing." Rather, she makes a larger claim that the experience of contemporary life in industrial society is being transformed (for better or worse) by computation. We could call this ethos "post-human". To the extent we credit this, then digital literature becomes a site where we might expect important thinking, courting, resisting of these changes in the human to be taking place!
See p. 56 ..."Mediation in this sense ..."
See also, p. 58 "...the computer's real agency" AND "When literature leaps from one medium to another ... it does not leave behind ..."
p. 63, Michael Joyce's "Twelve Blue" is seen as literature leaping into the ethos of the web, repositioning the reader as "player" and moving away from the metaphor of the page.
http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/joyce__twelve_blue.html
p. 64, Hayles claims that Joyce's "Twelve Blue" requires a different kind of reading to be appreciated.
p. 83 - Conclusion with regard to "intermediation" as a way of thinking about the different reading called for by computational litearture.